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When I told my next door neighbor in May of 2008 that I was going to sell the house along with all of my personal possessions and move to Chiclayo Peru with my Peruvian wife, his response was..” That’s a path not many men walk.” I had that impression as well, but have since learned that many men and women have walked and continue to walk that path. There is a large expatriate community in Lima and a significant number of gringos scattered about the remainder of the country from the larger coastal cities to the smallest jungle villages. Many of them have personal blogs in which they offer travel advice, news, and a wealth of other information along with their individual experiences. The purpose of this blog is not so far reaching. My intent is simply to record my experiences and observations for family, friends and anyone else who may be interested, but mostly for myself. Peru is to me a musical, magical land and I’ve found that writing about it helps me to preserve the beauty I experience as I explore this enchanting country. Anyway, thanks for visiting my site. Feel free to come back again, and leave a comment if you’d care to or send an email to me at kaetan1@gmail.com.

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Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Chiclayo…A Spy Capitol part 2

Authors note – My thanks
to those who mourned my death in ‘Chiclayo…A
Spy Capitol’, and to the folks who said they liked the story. I had fun writing
it. I thought about a sequel; started typing and this is what came out. I hope
you enjoy it. Tom

*****

Sometimes a guy gets lucky. Sometimes with a little luck a
guy can survive when whoever runs this show we call life decides to sucker
punch you in the gut. If you’ve been there you know what I mean. If you
haven’t…well.

I caught a break big-time that day James Bond shot me in
Chiclayo’s Plaza de Armas. Lying there face down in the grass I thought I'd bought the big one for sure. Call it what you will - spirit, essence, life
force, soul, whatever, mine was slipping away fast. The wounds didn’t hurt much
and I wasn’t scared. I felt kind of peaceful really. My consciousness was
fading. I didn’t know what was real anymore and was thinking it didn’t matter when
I imagined I heard way off in the distance a voice saying, “Let me through, I’m
a doctor”. I thought my mind was replaying a Leslie Nielsen sound clip from the
movie Airplane but it turns out I didn’t imagine it.

The voice belonged to Doctor Jonathon Huxley, THE
world-famous surgeon who specializes in saving the lives of people who have
been shot by spies. He just happened to be attending an international medical
conference in Lima and afterward just happened to come to Chiclayo to watch his
daughter play in an International League volleyball match hosted by Chiclayo
and afterward just happened to be in the Plaza de Armas when James Bond aka 007
deposited three bullets in my body. See what I mean about luck? And there’s more.

A nun who had just left the church across the street was
passing through the park and loaned a six-inch switchblade knife she carries
for protection to the doctor who used it to remove the bullets. The Topitop
clothing store kitty-corner from the park sold him a blouse at half price to
stop the bleeding and clean the wounds. The thread he used to close the wounds
came from a fish-net stocking from one of the party girls who regularly patrol
on Balta Avenue North. As she unraveled the stocking and handed the thread to
the doctor she said, “If Tom survives tell him it’s for old time’s sake.” I
swear I have no idea what she’s talking about.

I refused the doctor’s order to go to a hospital and sent
the ambulance back to the barn. Bond probably thought I was dead, but if
somehow he knew I survived he might try to finish the job. I thought I had a
better chance of staying alive at home. In the US I’d taught Maribel to shoot
and she became pretty handy with a gun. Too bad we didn’t have one. I would have
to deal with security later.

The first thing I had to do was get home. My brother in law
hung up when I asked him to come get me with his moto. Some people can really
hold a grudge. Four taxis refused to take me. You know you must look like crap
when a Chiclayo taxi passes on a fare. I finally bought a cheap hollow-core door at a hardware store to be used as a stretcher and hired six guys lounging in the park to carry me home. They put the door on their shoulders; three on each side and we started out.

People on the street thought it was a funeral procession. Police blocked traffic at the intersections for us. Before long there were 40 to 50 mourners following. Several of them placed flower petals on me. Many of the women were sobbing; one so hard she passed out. I don't know when the band joined us. The guys carrying me got into the spirit of the thing and started swaying with that side-to-side motion they do here while carrying caskets. I tried not to move and kept my eyes closed. I didn't want to intrude on the crowd's grief.

When we got to my house the guys carrying me didn't know what to do and I didn't either. I didn't want to interrupt the solemnity of the occasion but I couldn't lie there forever so I told the guys to put me down and I sat upright. A woman screamed, "It's a miracle, praise God!" and everyone fell to their knees. I had to put a stop to this so standing erect I growled in a loud voice, "I am the devil!" That worked. In ten seconds the street was clear.

Getting up the stairs was a bitch. We live on the second
floor of a three level apartment building. The old woman living on the first
floor couldn’t help me, and the family on the third floor was out doing their
daily thing. With Maribel’s help I finally made it into our home. The first
thing on the agenda was a shower and then a trip to the bedroom for some clean
clothes. I sat on the bed to put on my pants and passed out.

The next day was better. I was as stiff as a week old
dishcloth but the pain from my wounds wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I
was able to take care of myself if I moved slowly and carefully. Later I was
sitting in my favorite chair just starting to doze when Maribel handed me the
evening edition of El Comercio. I was stunned at the headline.

Shoe shine man foils/shoots robber

Yesterday
morning a heroic shoe shine man foiled an attempted robbery of a Chiclayo
landmark bookstore by first wrestling the robber away from the store and then
running after him and finally shooting him three times. The man declined an
interview, saying only that he did what any fine, upstanding citizen would do.

The
robber, an English speaking gringo survived with the help of a doctor who was
in the park at the time. The robber refused hospitalization and would not give
his name. Police refused to arrest him, saying no crime had been committed.

A
crime may not have been committed, but it was certainly attempted so this
reporter followed the would-be robber, who tried to pretend he was dead to his home at 200 Airzola, and then
warned the neighbors that a thief was in their midst. Some sort of action will
surely follow to see that justice is done.

Great….just great. Can you believe it? Thanks to a fledgling
reporter trying to be a Carl Bernstein or Bob Woodward (look um’ up if you want
to know) Bond is a hero who knows I survived and exactly where I live, and I’m the
bad guy who, if the crowd protesting outside my door has its way will soon be
deported.

I was pretty sure that Bond and Nikita would try to finish
the job now that they knew where I lived. I thought it would be better if instead
of waiting for them I left the house but I wasn’t in shape to do that. I needed
to do something to buy myself some time to heal, but what? I looked at the
entire building to see how a person could gain access. All of the windows on
all three levels are protected with ornamental ironwork. There is no way to
climb to the roof from outside. I suppose they could fire rockets through the
windows but if they had rockets I was screwed no matter what precautions I
took. Besides, spies prefer sneaky, subtle ways of doing things. The only way I
could see to get inside is through the door. It’s a metal door with three
separate bolts but it wouldn’t stop me so I knew it wouldn’t stop my enemies.

I couldn’t sit on the stairway 24 hours all day every day
waiting for them. I had to devise some booby traps (I called them Bondy traps
ha ha). The problem is the family on the third floor. The parents and kids come
and go at all hours so of course they would trigger any traps I set. Then luck
stepped in again. The wife told Maribel they were going to Cajamarca for two
weeks to visit family. Two weeks would buy me the time I needed. If you’re
wondering about the woman on the first floor, she’s 94; walks with a cane and
spends all day looking out her window with her cat named Muffin. I cringe every
time I hear of a pet with a cutesy name like Muffin. You just know the owner is
the kind of person who says stuff like, “Muffin…oooo is so sweeeet – yes oooo issss.”
On a list of the most irritating forms of human behavior the ’Muffin’ owners of
the world rank in the top five. Anyway, the old lady hasn’t been near the
stairway in 10 years. Perfect.

There are eight wooden stairs on the first flight and seven
on the second. To keep Nikita and Bond away from my door I needed to stop them
on the first flight. This is what I did.

On the second step from the bottom (in case they climbed two
steps at a time) I removed the wooden step and placed a lever attached to a
thin rope, and then replaced the step. The rope led to an eye-hook on the wall an
inch above the step and from there to another eye-hook placed one inch from the
ceiling directly above the stair. Next to the upper eye-hook the rope went
through a hole I drilled in the exterior wall. The rope was attached to 55
gallon barrel filled with sand positioned on a collapsible shelf. There was a
second length of rope also attached to the barrel. The other end formed a loop
on the second step. Stepping on the stair would cause the lever under the step
to release a pin holding the shelf the barrel was on. When the barrel fell the
loop would ‘lasso’ the leg(s) of the offender causing them to be suspended
upside down inches from the ceiling.

In case the lasso trap was somehow avoided I placed a second
trap on the forth step. I removed the step and placed two springs under each
end and replaced the step. I then drove a nail in the center of the step. When
stepped on the nail would contact a detonator causing two explosives placed
under the step at each end to explode, forcing the step and whoever was on it
rapidly upward. Their head slamming into the ceiling would result in a coma for
at least a week. I tinkered with the springs until even a soft breeze would set
the trap off.

The lasso trap was unintentionally tested when Maribel
forgot to tell me she was leaving to shop for groceries. Her momentary
discomfort from hanging upside down, and broken eggs all over the stairway is a
small price to pay for proving the trap worked. She doesn’t agree. I completed
the setup by installing a silent alarm flashing strobe light in our bedroom.

Nothing happened the first three nights. On the forth night
at exactly 2:32 AM the strobe light turned on. When Maribel became frightened I
told her to relax, everything was under control. I didn’t need the strobe light
to wake me. Before it turned on I heard both
traps activate; first the explosives and then the lasso trap when the barrel
hit the floor. I had caught both Nikita and James Bond! I smiled and savored
the moment as I walked to the stairway and turned on the light
switch.

Muffin wasn’t so “sweeeet” anymore. What remained of the cat
was splattered all over the stairway ceiling. A little further down the stairway
the old lady was dangling in mid-air. She was suspended upside down in a weird
sitting position. How was I supposed to know that she would forget to close her
door that night, and that the cat would climb the stairs and trigger the
explosive trap which catapulted it at warp speed into the ceiling? How was I
supposed to know that the old lady, hearing the noise and seeing what happened would
try to get to the cat? She couldn’t climb the stairs so she tried to go up
backward on her behind, using her legs to push herself to the next step. When
she sat on the lasso trap step the looped rope lassoed her butt and pulled her
into the air. This was a discouraging development.

Afterwards she phoned the reporter and blabbed the whole
story to him. He promptly printed it, which increased my neighbor’s calls for
my deportation and spoiled any chance I had for catching the spies. It was a
bad situation but at least it got me the time I needed to heal my body. No more
running away, hiding and being on the defensive. It was time for me to be the
aggressor; to take the battle to Bond and Nikita.